Reporter's notebook: Bemidji storm exacerbated housing needs in the area

NINA MOINI: Well, we're excited about this. On Thursdays, we're featuring the work of our regional reporters and having them open their notebooks a bit to shed light on how they work all across the great state of Minnesota for us.

Today, we're going to chat with Mathew Holding Eagle III. We had him on the show just a couple days ago, talking about the sentencing of former state senator Nicole Mitchell. But today, we're going to chat with him about some reporting he's been doing on rural housing needs and get to know him a little bit. Thanks for being on the show, Mathew.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: And just like I just mentioned, you are covering an entire region for us. That means you cover all types of things-- court cases, housing needs. But I want to talk just a little bit about you to start. For our listeners, is there anything that you maybe want them to or something that people don't usually know about you when you're doing your work?

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Yeah. So one of my favorite books is To Kill a Mockingbird, and it's one of those books that I've revisited over the years. I'm really drawn to its themes. So when my youngest daughter was born and we were deciding on a name, I thought, what better way to pay tribute to the book than naming my daughter after the author, Harper Lee? But I had to compromise because my daughter's mother didn't like the middle name Lee, L-E-E.

NINA MOINI: Oh, OK.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: [LAUGHS] Yeah, so we used L-E-I-G-H. So I guess--

NINA MOINI: Oh, nice.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Yeah. I guess you could say my daughter's name was inspired by the author, Harper Lee.

NINA MOINI: Oh, I love that. Let's talk about this story that you're working on about rural housing needs because it's such an important issue. You focus partly on Bemidji, which really is still recovering from a really destructive storm that hit a few months ago. So if you want to just tell us a little bit about what compelled you to start pulling at this thread of housing.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Yeah. We were looking into the impacts from the June storms, and we heard through sources that a woman named Lisa Madsen was really in a bind. She's a single mother of two young children. And on the morning of the storm, they had the roof ripped off parts of their apartment.

NINA MOINI: Oh, wow.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Then water just started pouring in. She suffered a lot of damage to her personal effects. Lisa's mother, Karen, was also in the building, but a different apartment. And they all had to evacuate.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Karen was unable to find a new place. Well, Karen-- sorry, Karen was able to find a new place a few weeks later. But Lisa, the daughter, wasn't so lucky. And she's pretty much been couch surfing ever since. This has been really hard on her and her two kids. I want to play you some really poignant tape where she talks about how her daughter, Sage, has been handling not having a stable home.

LISA MADSEN: I remember Sage said, she's like, I wish we had a better life. And I was like, girl, don't say that. But also, yeah, [LAUGHS] it's been some tough stuff. But I don't know. I think for me, it's interesting because it's hard to even say-- it feels so goofy to say homeless, in some ways, because it doesn't feel right because we aren't in a hand-to-mouth situation.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: But it's still really stressful for her. She also had some stories of other people whose housing situation became complicated because of the storms. But I also knew housing across greater Minnesota was tight. So I started calling experts to find out about that and broaden the story.

NINA MOINI: And what did they say stood out?

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Well, one expert said the housing shortage in rural Minnesota really started being noticed around 2017, but legislators didn't really start getting involved until we started facing a workforce shortage in parts of the state. And when some of the experts started meeting with legislators about the problem, they asked them, how can there be a housing shortage in areas of population decline?

NINA MOINI: Oh, that seems like a fair enough question. What's the answer to that?

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Well, it comes down to demographics. I was told that in some rural areas, they've lost a third of their population since 1970. And this is a pretty common occurrence throughout greater Minnesota. At the same time, there's a lot of aging baby boomers in rural areas, and those baby boomers are living in homes where there's only one or two of them there. But back in the day, they used to be a family of five or six.

Then, when those baby boomers leave the workforce, they're holding on to their homes. And in the end, those homes would have probably been better suited for a bigger family. It's kind of like using a backpack to carry a pencil.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS] Sure.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Yeah. And for the most part, we haven't developed any new housing in a lot of our rural areas. I talked to Kelly Asche, senior researcher at the Center for Rural Policy and Development, and he helped me understand why.

KELLY ASCHE: Now, developing housing is really challenging in rural areas because it's all about economies of scale, right? So the cost to build a house in a rural area, it's pretty much the same as in a metropolitan area. The materials are pretty much the same. The cost of labor is going to be the same. And so developers are always going to build housing where they can make the most profit.

So let's say a beginner house standard for what we would call a starter house is probably around $300,000 now, right? It's going to cost $300,000 in Perham, and it's going to cost $300,000 to build. And it's going to cost that much to build, let's say, in Maple Grove. The issue is that these developers can charge a lot more for that house in Maple Grove than they can in Perham.

NINA MOINI: Hmm, OK. So that sounds like maybe there's a big disincentive to build in a small rural town like Perham compared to a bigger suburb like Maple Grove. Where does that leave people who need housing in rural areas?

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Some of the folks I talked to said that right now, the best option is to get local and state government involved. And this would be done to help offset the cost for developers. Because if building in rural areas isn't profitable for them, they're just not going to do it. It's interesting to note, though, that oftentimes, in rural areas, even if you build a new home there, once it's appraised, the value is lower than what you spent building it.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And like I said, Mathew, you cover all types of things in your region. Anything else that you're keeping an eye out for?

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Absolutely. I'm going to be looking at the dispute over the library in Bemidji and at the Beltrami County History Center. Both are looking at funding cuts. The Beltrami County Board of Commissioners recently voted on and approved a preliminary budget for the upcoming year that included a proposed reduction of 42% for community service programs.

And so far, it's been met by huge public outcry. People are arguing that the services are essential and should not be defunded. And I'm also on the lookout for any stories about fun, zany stuff happening in my area. So if listeners hear this and have ideas, please feel free to send me an email.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, we have to throw some zaniness in the news once in a while. And you've had some zany stories. Before I let you go, what's the most fun story that you have reported on so far here?

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: I would say one of the most fun was the wiener dog races in Vergas, Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS]

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: [LAUGHS] It was just-- it was absurd. A little town of 200, 300 people swelling to, like, 1,500, 2,000 and watching the dogs, the little wiener dogs of all shapes and sizes, leave the finish line or not leave the finish line, or leave the finish line and jump the fence to go get petted by spectators.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS]

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: It was just absurd. Like I said, it was just really a wholesome atmosphere.

NINA MOINI: I love that for you that you got to throw that into all your other coverage. Thank you so much for stopping by Minnesota Now, Mathew, and sharing what you've got working on for us. Really appreciate it.

MATHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Thank you, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Mathew Holding Eagle III is our Bemidji Bureau reporter.